


rather stay in (thank god you showed up)

by orphan_account



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Fluff, Halloween, M/M, Minor Jeon Wonwoo/Wen Jun Hui | Jun, Party, belated fic rip, belated fic tbh oops, my precious verkwan babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-08
Updated: 2019-11-08
Packaged: 2021-01-25 08:33:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21353287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Hansol Vernon Chwe usually hated people in his room, however, he couldn't help but let the amusing and intriguing stranger step into his room and life at his sister's halloween bash.
Relationships: Boo Seungkwan/Chwe Hansol | Vernon
Comments: 4
Kudos: 123





	rather stay in (thank god you showed up)

Halloween, Hansol is convinced, is the worst holiday.

At least, it’s the only one that results in Hangyeol inviting what feels like all of Seoul’s young population to their house. This happens every year: their parents depart for a visit to Gwangju at the start of the week, and by the time Friday comes around, Hangyeol’s got the first floor of the mansion looking like something straight out of a horror movie. The party is always centered in the ballroom, but Hangyeol has this obsession with making sure that no matter where they wander, it should be the very essence of Halloween.

At seven o’clock, about an hour before people should start showing up, Hansol figures he should go down and eat something. He stops at the top of the staircase. His eyes sweep the ceiling–-just to be safe. Hangyeol has a history of setting things to drop down on people, to make sure no one goes up there. (Not that it works.)

This year it’s empty. No giant spiders or witches or whatever that bleeding monster from last year was- frankly he may have been a little traumatized- but he feels more secure as he makes his way down the stairs. The second he’s off the last step, something tackles him from the side. He yelps as he hits the ground, a hooded figure on top of him.

“Get off me!” he growls, shoving at whoever it is. He’s not an idiot. He knows it’s a person. He squirms for a minute before getting a knee against their chest for a more successful push.

The hood flips back when they land on their back.

“Junhui,” Hansol says, his voice exactly as acidic as he means it to be. “If you ever do anything like that again––”

Wen Junhui, a dance performer- what a joke, he’s a clown- and a complete pain in the ass, just grins and says, “You’ll kill me? It is the season.”

“Wonwoo,” he shouts, because if Junhui is here, there’s no way his boyfriend isn’t, “Come put your pet on a leash!”

“Damn rude as hell,” Junhui says. Hansol ignores him and hoists himself back onto his feet. He makes a face as Junhui does the same. Wonwoo, strides into the room through the same door Junhui used. Hangyeol follows, her arms wrapped around a bowl of candy.

“Junhui,” Wonwoo says, his eyebrows raised, “what did you do?”

Hansol stomps out of the room, leaving Junhui to explain to Wonwoo that he is going to be expecting Hansol’s revenge for the next fifty years of his life, and that it is entirely his own fault. Hangyeol is close on his heels.

“Hey,” she says, “are you actually going to make an appearance this year? Or are you still the shadow upstairs I need to warn people about?”

“Shadow,” he says. The kitchen is just as adorned as everything else, cobwebs everywhere, fake blood splashed across the floor. Hansol steps around it, not wanting to slip when he’s gathering a plate. A life-sized werewolf stands in front of the fridge, and Hansol nudges it out of the way. Last year it had ended up in front of his bedroom door.

“Of course you are.” Hangyeol sets the bowl on the counter, right next to a platter that holds a severed head. Hansol is pretty sure it’s modeled after a character from the Addam's Family, and he wouldn’t be surprised if the other family members are somewhere around the house. “Are you ever going to be sociable?”

“Not a chance,” Hansol says. He closes the fridge once his plate is full. His next stop is to dig both hands into the bowl of candy, coming away with fistfuls of skittles, m&ms, kit-kats, and more.

“That’s for the party,” Hangyeol says, but she doesn’t stop him.

“I’ll try not to murder anyone who ends up on the second floor by accident.” He stuffs the candy into his pockets. “But anyone who tries using my bed to have sex–” This has happened. Twice. “–is going to end up being the most realistic decoration you have down here. See you in the morning.”

With that, he disappears back to his bedroom.

By ten that night, the party is in full swing. Hansol knows because he can hear the music pounding downstairs, practically shaking the ceiling. His floor. There’s the occasional scream, too, no doubt because Hangyeol shuts off most of the lights every year, and there are at least a few fake corpses down there. Still, he’s managed to get some reading done, and now he’s staring at one of his college essays, the cursor blinking at him like the spiteful creature it is.

Something crashes downstairs. Hansol rolls his eyes. Something breaks every year. With any luck, this year it’ll be their mom’s hideous painting of some old actor he’s never heard of. He’s just reaching for a kit-kat when his doorknob turns.

Hansol is on his feet in a second, more than ready to shove the idiotic people who think they’re going to use his bed, back into the hallway. Except, he realizes, it isn’t a couple. It’s one guy, probably the same age as himself. He’s got cropped brown hair in his bright eyes, angel wings are adorned on his back with a halo gaily tilted on the side of his head with music notes, peculiarly enough, littered everywhere, a mic was held lightly in his right hand.

“Oh,” the guy says, smiling awkwardly, “Sorry. I was looking for a bathroom.”

“It’s down the hall,” Hansol says. He frowns at the guy’s costume. If that even is a costume. “Left, and then another left down there. First door.”

“Thanks.” The guy ducks back out of the room, even closes the door after himself, which is more than Hansol can say for every other person who’s wandered in.

Hansol drops onto the bed. He snags his kit kat with one hand, drags his laptop onto his thighs with the other. Just type something, he tells himself. It can’t be any worse than the blank page.

‘The first time I went to Japan,’ he types, and immediately deletes.

The door opens again. Hansol opens his mouth but– it’s the same guy from a few minutes ago.

“Hey,” the guy says.

“Hey,” Hansol echoes. “You don’t need directions to get back downstairs, do you?”

“No,” the guy says, and must decide, somewhere in his head, that it’s all right for him to stay, because he edges the door shut and leans against it. “This is some house you’ve got here.”

“I know,” Hansol says. He swallows. There’s nothing party-related in his room. “Can I do something for you? The party is downstairs.”

“You’re Hangyeol’s older brother, aren’t you?” The guy removes a music note from his lapel. He twirls it in his fingers. “Hansol right? I’m Seungkwan.”

“Okay?” Hansol’s still not sure what this guy is doing here. He’s a little surprised he actually knows Hangyeol. Odds are three-quarters of the people here have never met her face to face. Half of those probably don’t even know whose party they’re at.

Seungkwan invites himself deeper into the room. Suddenly he’s sitting right beside Hansol, craning his neck to see the computer screen. “You said yourself there’s a party going on downstairs. But you’re all alone up here.”

“I don’t like parties,” Hansol says.

“I caught on to that,” Seungkwan says. “I’m guessing you don’t like people a whole lot.”

“And yet,” Hansol says, “here you are.”

Seungkwan laughs. Loud. Hansol starts. It’s a good laugh. Strong and musical, though it contorts his attractive face into an amusing spectacle. “Here I am,” he agrees. “So, you don’t like parties or people, what do you like?”

“Being left alone,” Hansol says promptly, earning another laugh. Still, Seungkwan doesn’t seem inclined to go anywhere. He’s still playing with the music note, rolling the it between his hands. “What are you supposed to be, anyway?”

“I, uh.” Seungkwan tugs his boxing clothes on. “I'm everyone's beloved ‘Angel of Song”. He sings.

Hansol blinks. “That is possibly the dumbest thing I have ever heard.”

“I don’t want to hear that from the kid who’s alone in his room on the computer when one of the best Halloween parties in the city is being held in his own house,” Seungkwan chides. The tips of his ears have gone pink. It’s kind of cute- really cute. “What are you doing, anyway? Is it at least something Halloween-y?”

Halloween-y. Hansol can’t help a snort. “I’m working on my essay for––”

“You’re what?” Seungkwan sounds like this is a personal offense. “No, no, that’s not allowed.”

And then he– this guy Hansol has never met before today– reaches out and shuts his laptop.

“It’s Halloween,” Seungkwan goes on. “You’re supposed to do something scary, something fun.”

“You just–” Hansol cuts himself off. He’s not sure why. With anyone else he would give them an earful. Now though, with Seungkwan looking at him in a way that says he’s missing out on a huge part of the human experience (or something like that), he can’t do it.

Instead he says, “What do you suggest?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Seungkwan says, in perfect hosting tone. He hops up from the bed and crosses the room. Before Hansol can tell him not to, he flicks the lights off. Somehow he makes it back to the bed. Hansol feels him sit down.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Hansol asks. “I only met you ten minutes ago, so I’m not making out with you.” He squints at him, "... or doing anything else".

“That’s not what I was going to suggest,” Seungkwan says, and Hansol’s pretty sure he’s burning dark red. “I was going to say we tell scary stories. Though now that you mention it, making out’s not a bad idea. You want to?”

There’s a beat.

“Tell me a story first,” Hansol says. He pushes himself backwards on the bed until he hits the wall. Beside him, he feels Seungkwan doing the same thing. “Then we’ll see.”

“Okay.” Seungkwan settles in. His arm is warm against Hansol’s. “So, listen to this. Once there was a babysitter. There are a lot of scary stories about babysitters, actually. This one, she put the kids to bed. Then she went to this other room to watch TV.”

Here, Seungkwan stretches. It’s not subtle, the way he reaches an arm around Hansol’s shoulders, lets his fingers settle on his arm.

“Now the family she’s babysitting for, they’re rich. They collect art. There’s statues and paintings and similar things all over the house. The room with the TV has a statue of a clown standing there in the corner. She sits there and watches TV, but the whole time, she keeps looking at this statue, because it’s pretty creepy. Comes with clown territory, you know?”

Hansol shifts, lets himself get closer to Seungkwan. He’s never kissed somebody he’s known for less than an hour before. Never kissed someone he’s known for less than a year, actually.

“After a while,” Seungkwan goes on, “she gets sick of having this clown there. It’s more unnerving than she can take. She goes into the other room and calls up the parents. ‘I know this is weird,’ she says to the mother, ‘but is it all right if I cover the clown statue with a sheet or something? It makes me uncomfortable.’”

Seungkwan’s fingers squeeze down on the top of Hansol’s arm. His other hand finds its way to Hansol’s hand. Hansol lets his fingers twine into Seungkwan’s. Seungkwan’s apple cheeks rise with his smile in response to Hansol’s action.

“The answer from the mother isn’t what she expects. ‘What clown statue?’ The babysitter explains that it’s the one close to the TV. The mother says to get the kids and get out of the house. They don’t have a clown statue.”

“So,” Seungkwan says, edging so close that his lips are almost touching Hansol’s forehead, “she takes the kids and gets them to the neighbor’s place. They call the cops. It turns out the clown is a convicted serial killer who escaped from prison earlier.” He pauses for a moment. “What do you think?”

“A ghost clown would have been scarier,” Hansol says.

“I’ll keep that in mind next time I tell it. Is it all right if I kiss you now?”

Hansol swallows. “Yes.”

Seungkwan moves, shifting faster than seems logical until he’s straddling Hansol’s hips. He’s light, and fits perfectly on Hansol’s lap. His lips are on Hansol’s in a moment, first the corner of his mouth and then really there. The first kiss is tentative, like he’s not sure this is really okay. Hansol slides a hand onto Seungkwan’s face, his thumb on Seungkwan’s cheek, and Seungkwan kisses him harder.

“Better than essays?” Seungkwan asks between kisses, when his teeth are lightly skimming Hansol’s throat.

“Shut up,” Hansol mumbles. He wraps his other hand around Seungkwan’s neck, pulls him in closer, breathes him in deeper. “Happy Halloween.”

-

The first thing Hansol sees when he wakes up the morning after is a half sheet of notebook paper. It wouldn’t seem so out of place if not for the fact that when he fell asleep, that very same spot was inhabited by Seungkwan. Hansol reaches for the note and squints at it in the low light.

‘Had to run!’ The handwriting is incredibly, neat- pretty, at odd’s with a certain someone’s personality. ‘Sorry I had to leave. Miss you already.’

Hansol rolls his eyes. He’s not disappointed that Seungkwan left. He’s not. It was just a Halloween night hookup. He crumples up the note and tosses it in the direction of his trash basket. He forces himself up, out of bed, to his door.

The hallway is cleaner than he expects. The only signs that any party-goers made it up last night are an abandoned pumpkin bucket and a collection of candy wrappers a few feet from that. Last year there was a mess of blood and a limb, along with a place where someone didn’t make it to the bathroom before expelling their stomach's contents.

The rest of the journey to the kitchen reveals that the rest of the house didn’t make it through the night anywhere near as unscathed. Every where’s a mess, beer bottles and displaced decorations littering the floor. A mummy has been stripped of its bandages and stands there as a shriveled man with half-open eyes. His bandages are up against the curtain’s bar.

“I hope you know I’m not helping clean this up,” Hansol says to Hangyeol. She’s sitting at the island with a bowl of rice and an identified meat.

“You haven’t before, I don’t expect you to start now,” she says without looking up. Her fingers fly across the surface of her phone. Odds are she’s posting about everything that was left at the house. Things are always forgotten. A lot of things.

Hansol pours himself a bowl of cereal. The blood that was on the floor last night is already cleaned up. The kitchen is in surprisingly good shape all around. “Good time last night?”

“I think so.” Hangyeol finally looks away from her phone. Her eyes go wide. The corners of her lips quirk up. “It looks like you had fun, too.”

“What are you talking about?” Hansol asks blankly.

His sister’s eyes dart toward his throat. “You have a little something there. A few somethings, actually.”

“Oh, no.” His face burns. He jerks a hand up to his neck. Damn it. Seungkwan. “I just–”

“No need to explain,” she interrupts cheerfully. She hops off of her stool. “I’m glad you had a good Halloween for once.”

With that, Hangyeol is gone from the kitchen, Probably off to work either cleaning or gathering things together. Hansol buries himself in his breakfast. Not that it’s very distracting. Telling himself not to think about Seungkwan- just keep him in his head. Once he’s finished with his cereal, he drops his bowl in the sink and heads to the stairs.

He’s only just reached the staircase when someone rings the doorbell.

“I got it!” Hangyeol shouts, her voice echoing from whatever room she’s in. Hansol stops at the base of the steps. His sister’s footsteps pound across the floor. He can’t hear the door open, but he does hear her say, somewhat breathless, “Hey, is there something I can do for you?”

The answer isn’t so audible. A guy’s voice, muffled. Hansol recognizes it. Remembers it telling him a scary story and murmuring in his ear between kisses. He wanders his way back toward the door. Sure enough, there’s Seungkwan, visible beyond Hangyeol, saying, “– a mic. I think I might have left them here.”

“A mic,” Hangyeol says thoughtfully. “I don’t think I’ve seen them, but I haven’t been everywhere yet. You can come in if you want.”

Hansol swallows. “I know where they are.”

Hangyeol half-turns, so she can look back and forth from Hansol to Seungkwan. “Since when do you–” She stops. A grin works its way over her face. “Oh. Right. I’ll just leave you to it.”

She darts away again, off into parts unknown. Hansol’s sure she’ll be perfectly content doing what she’s doing and grilling him for information later, so at least he doesn’t have to worry about her spying on him right now.

“So,” he says when she’s gone, “if it isn’t the master of stupid costumes.”

“You can’t say it didn’t work for you.” Seungkwan steps into the house and closes the door. He nudges Hansol in the direction of the stairs. “You let me do an awful lot of kissing you, so you definitely liked something I had going on.”

“It wasn’t your mic,” Hansol says. They’re all the way up to the landing when he adds, “Which isn’t here, by the way. I would have noticed it in my room.”

Seungkwan shrugs. “It’s at my house. I’d never leave my mic behind”

“Then why were you telling Hangyeol that you–”

Hansol stops talking as Seungkwan snags his fingers, turns him and crowds him up against the wall. He almost wants to protest, but doesn’t, when Seungkwan’s mouth lands on his own. He makes a soft sound, sliding his arms around Seungkwan’s neck, using his height and weight to his advantage he swings Seungkwan against the wall. Seungkwan presses into his mouth, gets him almost whimpering before pulling away.

“I figured she might not let me in,” Seungkwan says, “if I told her I was here to try making out with her brother.”

“You’d be surprised,” Hansol says, thinking of the way Hangyeol keeps smiling at the idea of him actually getting involved with someone. “Good cover though. People leave things here every year. We’ve still got a pig living in the backyard from a few Halloweens ago.”

“A pig,” Seungkwan repeats. They’re to Hansol’s room now. “Why did someone bring a sheep to a Halloween party?”

“If they had come back to tell us, I don’t think we would have the pig.” Hansol pushes the door shut. Seungkwan is right there, boxing Hansol in. This time though, he doesn’t kiss him, just looks at him. He drums his fingers against Hansol’s chest.

“You were gone when I woke up.”

Seungkwan makes a face. “Yeah, sorry, my dad called me at like six in the morning. He wanted me to deal with crap for law school. On a Saturday.”

“Law school?” Hansol raises an eyebrow. “You mean you’re planning to be an actual lawyer someday?”

“If I don’t my dad is probably going to kill me,” Seungkwan says. One of his hands comes up to Hansol’s face. Stroking gently, before kissing him quickly on the lips. “I’ve been having a thought since I left.”

“Yeah?” Hansol drops his head against his door. “What’s that?”

“I would love to take you out on a date.” Seungkwan looks weirdly serious, considering he’s asking Hansol out. “A real one, I mean, instead of defiling you in your bedroom. If you’re okay with that idea. If you’re not I can totally keep up with the bedroom defilement, I just thought–”

“Seungkwan,” Hansol says, squeezing a hand around one of Seungkwan’s wrists. “I’ll say yes unless you keep rambling.”

Seungkwan stops. He doesn’t seem to register, at first, what Hansol has said. Then he smiles. Laughs again, just the way he did last night, and Hansol’s heart pounds wildly in response.

“Awesome,” Seungkwan says, dropping another kiss at the corner of Hansol’s mouth. “I’ll bring my mic and music notes”

“If you do that,” Hansol says solemnly, “our first date ends before it begins.”

The only answer he gets is more laughter, followed by being kissed within an inch of his life.


End file.
